A New Year's Serve

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Serves

Once one starts exploring all the possible movements of the shoulder girdle, one may come to the conclusion that one doesn't know anything.

Nothing new in that. Something that certain people have averred all along.

There is context here for such a statement of no-nothingness however which has to do with a wish for more Alexander Technique like Goran Ivanisevic and less cartwheel like Tim Henman.

In present iteration, I've got myself humping my stomach out before I suck it in all as part of a plot to telescope (shrink bod length) before again to telescope (extend bod length this time).

Obviously, legs compression before extension is part of the same plot. So why not add depression and elevation of the shoulder girdle to all of this simultaneity?

We come back to a certain lingering question same as for the lower bod-- one leg or two? One girdle or both?

I certainly don't have any answer yet although the prospect of extended tossing arm depressing down at the girdle before shooting back up like a rocket is something I never heard of before and therefore find amusing.

To do: A relaxed full toss including follow-up. Only when arm is completely up will shoulders turn back. That would be the time for depression of the girdles followed by elevation (think of a double shoulder shrug). Remember, the legs already compressed as part of the archer's bow toss.

Chris Lewit has always said not to arch too soon and he is a smart guy (smarter than Mark Phillippoussis who though probably a better player has always said to arch throughout).

The experiment here is archer's bow first followed by all of the scapular stuff combined with using shoulders to put racket on side of the bod opposite from where it started.

Bill Matthias, former national champ of Guyana badly beaten by Fred Perry in an exhibition, said in later life, "I have come to the conclusion that all power in the serve comes from arching the back."

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Report

Went to the court with these thoughts. The tossing arm used scapular girdle along with other movements to get up in the sky. The trick is to keep it there. The idea of double elevation of the shoulders as part of hitting thrust is no good. But one can, without harm, easily expand one's notion of different motions in the hitting girdle, that would be on one side.

Depression of girdle, yes. Use of girdle to form a teardrop shape with end of the racket.

When should stomach bunch out? Why not during the archer's bow toss? That means you won't be trying to do too much when you turn shoulders back (but you are pulling elastic parts of the girdle crosswise as you do that, and you can depress the girdle toward the court right then too-- or should you wait for the whole body spring to do that? Youth wants to know).

No insecurely sexist comments on girdles, please. We just want pure thought here.

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Decels Happen when you Decelerate too Soon

But if you never hit a decel, you may be decelerating too late, which also can deprive your serve of the extreme (and succinct and sudden) acceleration it wants.

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A New Shot with a Future

Many new shots do not have a future. This one does.

First one gets going some no loop, no mondo, no nonsense double bend forehands. Those would be forehands in which the arm right-angles (verb). As forearm winds back wrist winds back independently but in unison as if the two parts of the same arm are dance partners. Shoulders stay level. Posture is erect. A shove shot. Full body transfer in other words is late. The vertical upper arm approximates the bar pins in a farm gate. The forearm (the gate) closes level and parallel to the court. Are you tall, reader? If so, this design may be good for taking a medium high ball out of the air and driving it flat or with mild topspin. I also think that power ought to come from the trunk rather than the hips as in the unusual example of Ricky Fowler the golfer.

I would prefer to use more hips and heavier topspin on lower balls. But I do want a variation here with spin for extra control only backspin this time. Again, I see this level-shouldered shot, i.e, both shoulders are equi-high from the court, as a shove shot. That means the "gate" comes round before you shove with body and elbow in a unified push.

But in the new shot being proposed here you use a composite or Australian grip, described in Ellsworth Vines' book as halfway between eastern and continental. For me that means tip of thumb on pointy ridge or sharp crest numerically known to readers at TennisPlayer as 7.5 . And wrist is flat this time, not already laid back as during the forward farm gate part of the double bend shot.

The same bod-and-elbow shove then occurs but with a mondo right on the ball.

The advantage of this is two-fold. The wrist laying back provides give (dwell) on the ball while the forearm cranking down adds backspin to the backspin already being generated by the open strings thanks to the composite grip.

The ball should bounce in the court but barely come up

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Ongoing Service Experiment

Objective: to apply the late Mark Papas' poetic image of "a teardrop" to expanded knowledge of movement possibilities within one's shoulder girdle on the hitting side.

If one purchases a used version of a very good book on human anatomy and then delves into the subject of shoulder girdle, one quickly learns of more parts than anyone really wants to memorize.

There is bone (e.g., spine of scapula), many muscles, a certain amount of connective gristle.

Rather than learning all the parts, I am suggesting that one follows Mark's poetic image to produce a common action known already to all serious students of the serve.

That would be first racket lowpoint as described by some followed by a second lowpoint to outside of the first. Different teaching pros have knocked themselves out trying to describe this essential transition that puts the racket on edge toward the tossed ball sometimes using between a hundred and thousand words in the attempt.

Well, this could be instance where poetic image once again is the most succinct of all language possibility.

Me, I think of Mark's teardrop as cartoon existing in two rather than three dimensions. I see a sharp point at top bellying out at bottom.

One may already form this teardrop every time one serves. I am proposing however that one tries to feel this motion deeper within the broad girdle or total housing around and under one's shoulder ball.

Maybe this won't make a positive difference to one's serve, maybe it will-- the very nature of all experiment.

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High Forehand Oncoming Bloop: Where this Old Guy Fails

One tries to identify the worst hole in one's personal game and then do something about it.

One could just invent a simplified shot that allows one to swat the hell out of these balls-- use a double bend structure with arm and wrist at right angles, then turn the upper arm like a farm gate and be straightening the wrist at contact-- something I never would do with a waist high or lower ball although I know a kid who does that pretty well.

I'll try a few of these "bat-with-level-forearm" shots, closing wrist variation.

I'm betting though on a different combo of mechanics within the same design.

Forearm does bat around level, succinct and powerful, but wrist will stay straight until then. Now one mondoes right on the ball as elbow finally releases toward the net.

This imparts fast underspin for both power and control.

But if ball is farther from bod than is optimum, one needs to open racket face. That face will close during the forearm batting stage since you are reaching and the elbow is out to the side.

Another challenge-- and big hitters, not just me, often muff this situation. The nothing ball is apt to be descending as one hits it. (If it were a little higher one could bend one's knees and smash it.)

Since it is descending, one needs to match its trajectory a bit. I propose extension from the legs over more complex modification to one's arm, which I would prefer keep going on a smooth and level path.

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What Do you Think, reader, of the Forehand Tennis Instruction that Has you Place two Tennis Rackets Butt to Butt in your Hitting Hand?

The two rackets thus form a long baton that you get to twirl from the middle.

It would be easy to tell you the source of this tennis tip, but who really cares about sourcing other than a bibliographer or drone English teacher trying to give instruction in the writing of an academic term paper?

We as tennis players should care more about sorcery than sourcing, the idea for itself that may lead specifically to a better forehand.

I ask, Does the baton start its twirl when racket tip is pointed at rear or side fence? I go with rear for now with thought in mind that this big piper cub propeller will have come around to correct line of flight by time of contact.

I ask again, Does elbow in this process revolve to right of center pin in this propeller or baton?

Would depend on bend or not in the hitting arm. If there is bend while the player willfully maintains the mechanical integrity of his propeller twirl, the elbow must indeed turn slightly to right of pin or axle before turning back toward that pin and above it.

I see this exercise as corrective for forehand wipe that veers too much to the side in that category of forehand in which the wipe happens right on the ball.

And ask again, Does the baton image, maintained after one has returned to a single racket, also cause one to slow down the speed of one's wipe?

The Hollywood tennis instructor Al Secunda, universally reviled for his sucking up to the stars, used to advise his students to "sand" the ball when hitting up on a second serve.

The notion of sanding for the production of topspin in any shot implies moderation of speed, does it not? You sand a piece of wood carefully. And try to find the correct combination of speed and pressure that results in the ideal amount of friction.

That's one idea. At opposite extreme, I suppose, is the notion of cranking with all the strength and speed one can muster whether one thinks of himself as Rafa Nadal or Thomas Muster.

The most topspin I ever faced was from a 5.5 player in Winston-Salem who wielded a racket in a fashion comparable to those two guys.

He was built like an ox. I ask, Did he use his strength to crank as if starting a Model T Ford or did he have so much natural strength that he was able to control the speed and power of his cranking with true accuracy?

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Simply Pursue the Image of a Small Plane Propeller

Better that than getting hung up on a baton unless one has an unnatural attraction to drum majorettes or majors and perhaps has always been in love with John Philip Sousa.

To be a small plane pilot, let's imagine that human brain and small plane prop are one and the same.

This makes the plane go in the direction we want. So let's set our brain-propeller a small amount to the right of our target.

And slow down the prop speed as suggested in the previous post.

Let's widen the stance and bend the knees a bit more so as to build space under the ball for all of this to happen.

We fly to right of ball. And then fly right at the ball.

Better that than push the ball off to the side.

Final question: What at contact is the level of the hand? Same as ball? Below it? Above it? Choices that affect the quality of one's spin.

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How Much Should We Listen to Pancho Segura on the Subject of One-Hand Backhand?

100 per cent. Because he is a smart and experienced cookie whether he himself has/had a bad one-hander or not.

Obviously he had/has one of the greatest forehands ever. I go with the idea of "has" rather than had even after the person is dead. To the 95-year-old undead person in this case let us cede great braininess both prehumous and posthumous whether to do so is humerous with next question whether during the bad one-handers of his hay-day he swung his humerus and how.

In CHAMPIONSHIP STRATEGY co-written with the late Gladys Heldman Segura decries chicken wing one-handers and yet espouses one-handers with ever straightening elbow built into them, a kind of cousin.

If what he espouses weren't slightly different from what I myself now do I wouldn't write this post.

He says, "As the arm swings forward, it straightens but never becomes rigid. At the moment of impact, when racket meets ball well in front of the body, there is a slight bend in the elbow. At the end of the follow through, the arm is almost but not quite straight."

I infer from this that the arm straightens all the way to the end of the follow through though never getting completely straight. Currently, I straighten only to impact but am open to the new idea because of its increased possibilities for economy combined with inside-out swing.

To this I add that fulcrum for the envisioned shot is not the shoulder ball but center of the back since contraction of the shoulder housing provides most of the power.

Experiment then will be to slow down subordinate elbow straightening even more so that it continues all the way to end of follow through.

No Wawrinka or Thiem, this.. Not in fact any of the many players who bar the arm and bar it early. Federer? He still is straightening his arm during the hitting part of his backhand, it seems to me.

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Free-Wrister Sister

We don't much care for forehands that are ideologically assembled. We rather believe that one reinvents from the forehands one has.

That would be The Waterwheel, in my case, and The McEnrueful.

The strong Eastern gripped Waterwheel, like its name, is a big vertical wheel that moves at a single pace caused by real or imagined water flow. With a slight exception to that. The racket goes a little faster just before contact then returns to base speed.

But am I that much of a physical artist, i.e., a dancer, to pull this off? Only on increasingly rare days. So I want now to do what I should have done all along. Incorporate within same form a very fast take up/initiatl turn that immediately goes into four inches of deceleration before completing the stroke exactly as before and in the same time.

The McEnrueful, eschewing mondo, uses straight wrist throughout. That besides its rhythmic down and up bowled backswing is its charm. But composite grip, which the McEnrueful uses, is a grip that should permit some shenanigans.

To that end I shall not mess with my McEnrueful. It is much too good a shot although good on increasingly rare days to ever mess with.

But I WILL add a free-wrister sister shot. Which will start by abandonment of the bowled down and up backswing of both arms. And eliminate all aeronautical banking in the shot as well.

This plot would seem to keep left hand on racket for longer but won't because of gradual layback of the wrist that pulls the racket throat away.

Wrist gradally opens in rhythmic tandem with rest of the backswing. And gradually closes during first part of foreswing, the army part. And rolls forward at same time to gradually close the strings. (This roll is caused by level swing with elbow held slightly out from bod.)

Aeronautical banking in a McEnrueful is caused by forward hips rotation that lowers the rear shoulder.

In the proposed sister shot one will keep one's shoulders level. And minimize forward hips turn (although there still will be some). One can swing the trunk, not the hips, to provide the bod half of delayed push on the ball. Delayed release of the elbow provides the other half of big push with wrist once again completely straight.

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Free-Wristed and Flat

Pancho Segura opines in his book CHAMPIONSHIP STRATEGY that a player should have three shots to draw upon equally on the backhand side, topspin, flat and underspin.

So why not have the same orchestration on the forehand side? Well, forehand slice is a specialty shot that never will be as good as mastered backhand slice.

I hereby propose a similar but different triad of basic shots, topspin, aeronautical flat, and clobber flat.

When one proposes new orchestration for one's old game, which most veteran players but not I would advise against, one needs to build on shots already there.

This can easily lead to more variety than one can handle if one already has subsections under main category, e.g., I recently described two kinds of topspin forehand, simple shove and shove with baton (or propeller).

But now call either shot topspin and leave it at that. And put with it two different composite grip shots, the McEnrueful, which is aeronautical and very good for low balls, and clobber flat, which should only be hit, same as its counterpart on backhand side, when bounced ball is at least four feet high.

A classic flat shot is uniformly level including the follow through.

To this end I continue my proposal of a free-wristed shot that takes bent forearm back level while gradually opening wrist according to the same rhythm.

These backswing mechanics despite grips being the same are are entirely different from those in a McEnrueful.

But I've always wanted to "farm-gate" some forehands and here is my chance. In fact two levers take the racket back through roll of the forearm from the shoulder (though elbow feels like the fulcrum) and smooth opening of the wrist.

With no loop, we reverse this action for the forward "clobber." Forearm and wrist close in tandem to put strings near the ball.

Then one shoves with bod and elbow, finishing as level as Ellsworth Vines hitting through a car tire suspended in mid-air by his old coach Mercer Beasley.

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Increase of Possibility

Hit some backhands where the racket goes up instead of down from initial takeback.

Stet. This seems good advice. We see examples of such slices and backhand volleys if we study all available Rosewall films.

In a whole set of backhands seen in the notorious German Barron's tennis book (with Ivan Lendl on the cover), the arm straightens as part of the forward action and not exclusively before it.

This is a genre of backhand reviled by some and supported by others.

To adapt these backhands to first idea proposed here, I am thinking, back and down for topspin. Back and down, shallowly, for most slice. Back and stay at initial level for flat and some slice. Back and up for some flat and slice and to make late adjustment.

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Re-focusing the McEnrueful

This shot like a lot in life goes in a cycle from good to mediocre to misses to mediocre to good-- but then and this is the unusual part-- becomes excellent out of all proportion to the other cycle markers.

The McEnrueful is worth attention, work and corrective. It has proven potential. To follow the Stan Smith bedrock principle that the weight is where the racket is, I'm betting now on more absorption of energy by one's bod at end of the follow through. Same feel a great golfer like Ellsworth Vines or Aubrey Boomer of Scotland used to strive for. So that the arm doesn't wrap so much. The McEnrueful just isn't a wrap-a-lot shot.

In fact the McEnrueful is much like the flat forehand taught by Welby Van Horn in SECRETS OF A TRUE TENNIS MASTER, only gets hit with a composite grip just a wee bit to left of Van Horn's classic eastern.

The down and up backswing however puts a unique cast on the shot.

Forward hips turn can happen with feet flat. Upper body can then take over, adding upward aeronautical banking and pulling the hips a bit more so that rear heel goes up on its toes and replaces a very small amount.

The shot gets out of whack as the replacement step gets too big-- a red light.

The racket can end up in the slam pose of being closed a bit and pointed at left fence. Good balance then is corresponding signal-- a green light.

P.S. When I'm thinking about this shot I want to think about it. When I'm not, I want to think about different things.

John McEnroe sometimes will hit this shot, staying low in his knees. Most of the time however he drives up through whole body thus adding mild topspin for control. In his autobiography, he points to unique leg strength as his prime physical asset.

While I'm thinking about how I still want to stay down in knees (for I am old and a little bit big), I'll advocate a vertical stretch up through core along with the aeronautical banking that also creates uppercutted control.

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The Next Temptation

Any tennis thinker no matter how wonderful may be challenged and should be, same protocol as for any other scientific research. Science builds out of conflict through consensus.

Name of a wonderful tennis thinker: Paul Metzler of Australia. Metzler is rare in voicing preference for free-wristed strokes saying that they are beautiful and contain increased possibility for aim control. He carefully defines free-wristed strokes as strokes in which the wrist closes with gradualness as racket approaches the ball.

To get a feel for this, I believe, one should apply similar gradualness in the backswing as well. And understand that by the time one hits the ball the wrist is straight and firm enough so that the overall shot is no longer free-wristed. Was free-wristed. Now is firm-wristed.

I love this part of Metzler's thought.

But our slow and gradual development of the Elly-bam may require new departure from everybody. Already it wraps one arm around the neck instead of the two in Coach Mercer Beasley's modeling.

A second departure could be a sidearm acceleration of the wrist melding into dynamic forearm just getting right-angled at that point with elbow and weight still hald back on rear foot in good if not overly perfect balance.

The emerging progression seems opposite from that in a topspin forehand where big motion is channeled into sharp curve before opening out again.

The Elly-bam: First wrist goes then forearm then body, arm and soul.

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[B] I go with the idea of "has" rather than had even after the person is dead.

Actually, I go with a similar notion. But once Segura passes he will be a "had" and no longer a has. For me, Segura has, at 95, the best two-handed forehand of all time and will continue to have so even if he lives to be 120, which he could well..